Law Students for Economic Justice (LSEJ) provides a community and voice for progressive law students and focuses on organizing within NYU.
Primarily, we:
- Organize NYU law students to engage in on-campus activism and participate in activities of grassroots organizations fighting for economic and social justice.
- Engage law students in direct service work, policy research, and advocacy.
- Host events for law students to learn about economic and social justice issues and careers.
Activities:
- Coalition on Labor Action according to Workers and Students (CLAWS): In October 2018, students in LSEJ worked with NYU workers to begin to build a worker-student coalition called CLAWS. Since then, CLAWS has developed into an organizing collective comprised of almost all the worker units on campus. CLAWS has organized around several issues: NYU’s weaponization of its Office of Equal Opportunity to fire low-wage workers, graduate student healthcare plans, the staggered nature of contracts for different worker units, and supporting unionization and contract renegotiation efforts.
- Economic Justice Advocacy: LSEJ regularly engages in advocacy around economic justice issues. We serve as a chapter of the People’s Parity Project (PPP), a national non-profit organizing law students across the country to engage in legislative advocacy, public education campaigns, and grassroots student mobilization to support equal access to justice, with a focus on the employment arena, workers’ rights, and court reform.
- Volunteering with CLARO: LSEJ partners with the Civil Legal Advice and Resource Office (CLARO), a limited, legal advice project for unrepresented debtor-defendants with consumer debt cases in New York City Civil Court. NYU students can sign up to volunteer at the Manhattan and Bronx civil courts to help interview defendants and issue-spot.
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On Campus Events: LSEJ puts on events at NYU Law to inform students about pressing economic justice issues in New York City and nationwide. We have put on panels on the state of court reform in New York and Antitrust & Big Tech Reform. We will also host a panel on the economic justice issues home health care workers face in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We also organize and facilitate conversations where students learn about career opportunities in the public interest and economic justice field.
Contact us!